Protest at McDonald’s over Israel friendly

A GROUP that advocates the boycott of Israeli products is to hold a protest outside a west Belfast McDonald’s against the fastfood firm’s sponsorship of the Irish Football Association.

BDS Ireland is hosting the protest to call on McDonald’s to end its sponsorship of the IFA unless the organisation cancels its friendly match with Israel at Windsor Park on Tuesday, September 11.

The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement is a global campaign that promotes various boycotts against Israel due to its treatment of Palestine over disputed lands in the West Bank.

The protest is taking place at the restaurant’s Kennedy Way outlet tonight between 7.30pm and 8.30pm.

McDonald’s has been the IFA’s community partner for more than 12 years.

Sinn Fein has also called on the IFA to cancel the game over Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian people in Gaza.

More than 5,000 people have signed a petition calling on the IFA to cancel the fixture.

The Northern Ireland Friends of Israel group said attempts to “politicise the game were sad”.

And the IFA said previously: “The association has no intention of cancelling Northern Ireland’s international challenge match against Israel on September 11.”

BDS Ireland said: “The IFA holding a ‘friendly’ match with Israel sends the message that Israel’s indiscriminate slaughter of Palestinians is acceptable and gives Israel a green light to continue its crimes, with impunity.

“These Israeli sporting events are part of the Israeli government’s ‘sports-washing’ propaganda strategy, which exploits sporting events to hide its systemic human rights abuses against Palestinians.

“Palestinian civil society has called for no business as usual with Israel as long as it denies Palestinians their human rights.”

It added: “There’s nothing friendly about the murder of children.”